Outsourcing Pregnancies

Commercial surrogacy has become a fast-moving, global business - and it keeps rapidly expanding - shaped by money, reproductive technology, commercial agencies and profound inequalities between countries. 

When one country closes its doors to foreign intended parents, the industry doesn't disappear; it is looking towards new destinations including Africa - Ghana and Kenya.

What drives this expansion? Who creates and fuels demand? What role do commercial agencies play in turning reproductive labour into a market?
And what happens when pregnancy itself becomes something that can be outsourced across borders?

In this webinar, Prof. Amrita Pande will, in conversation with Irina Herb, reflect on the findings of the Mapping Global Surrogacy research paper, the “domino effect” behind the industry's constant relocation, the political economy behind the expansion of global surrogacy markets, and connections between intended parents, agencies, clinics and those who carry pregnancies.

The conversation comes at a moment when surrogacy is becoming increasingly visible in public discourse - making it the more important to look at how the industry itself is structured.

The webinar is organized and supported by the Global Unit for Feminism and Gender Democracy, the Gunda Werner Institute, and the PRiNA Network.

Reproductive (In)Justice In An Unequal World

After the first series of webinar on population and fertility crisis, reproductive racism and migration issues, as well as Big Tech aspirations in the field of human reproduction now we return with three new conversations examining the technologies, markets and ideologies reshaping reproduction across borders.

From surrogacy markets in Ghana and Georgia to the emerging techno-libertarian dream of “building” the perfect baby, we will follow the global chains of money, labour, technology and power that increasingly shape who is enabled (or expected) to reproduce, who carries pregnancies, and which children are imagined as worth investing in.

With leading scholars, and researchers working across feminist theory, science and technology studies, we will ask uncomfortable questions:

→ What happens when pregnancy becomes a globalized service?
→ Who drives the expansion of fertility markets, and who bears their costs?
→ How are new reproductive markets being built across the Global South?
→ And what happens when reproductive technologies turn the child into a project of optimization?
 

Join us in September!
01 SEPTEMBER 2026 | 15:00–16:30 CEST
Registration

15 SEPTEMBER 2026 | 15:00–16:30 CEST
Registration

29 SEPTEMBER 2026 | 15:00–16:30 CEST
Registration
 

Online | Free to attend